Ack. We watched Peter Pan this morning, a movie I haven’t seen in years. I have no real need to see it again anytime soon. I said as much, and mentioned (offhand, to my parents) that in many ways, society is much better than it is now.

Ah, but you see, people might curse now, and THAT means that things are worse. Frankly, I see cursing as a minor issue where parenting is concerned. Dehumanizing other races? Minimizing the roles of girls and women? Treating people with no respect? To me, THOSE are moral issues. I couldn’t *fucking* care less about cursing.

I’ll update on the Japan trip in a bit, after I finally upload my pictures. I flew in Thursday night, and I’m finally only today starting to feel human again.

…I’m already ogling other people’s children. It’s become a nasty habit ever since having one of my own.

At least, while I do it, I’m friendly toward the parents about it — if I notice their child, it’s because I’m smiling at his watching Toy Story on a portable DVD player (flight from DIA to Houston) or giggling at a little girl just older than Maya who seems to have more energy than her little body can contain (this morning, at breakfast). It’s gonna be a long two weeks, and I miss Maya already.

Whoa, long travel days are rough! I got up at 2:15am to leave my folks’ house in Monument, CO at 3:20am for Denver International by 4:30. Flight was at 6:30. Got to Houston by 9:10, just to sit on the tarmac waiting for a spot for our plane to park (by about 9:40, yawn). Met Mike — my flight arrived exactly across the corridor from the gate for the flight to Narita — grabbed some food, and we were back onto a large aircraft for the next 13+ hours! From there, we caught a bus for another 1-1/2 hours to get to Omiya Station and a hotel. Even though it was only 6:00pm (on Sunday, mind you), we crashed and completely missed dinner, just to find ourselves wide awake at 3pm.

Let’s see…awake from 2:00am Saturday until 6:00pm Sunday (3am, Colorado time) — so that’s a good 24 hours of travel. Ack.

When I checked in with family this morning, they asked for my impressions so far of Japan. As bleary-eyed as I was on the bus ride, my impressions were so far limited. This morning didn’t add much, except that the hotel’s cafe had deco reminiscent of a 1980s salad bar (pale peaches and cream, green carpet, faded houseplants) and played the worst music. Take any overwrought love song from an American movie. Add Muzak. Oh, and the eggs here are runny. Please tell me that runny eggs aren’t going to be an ongoing theme!

Whine, whine, whine…packing again now, because we’re going to wander around Saitama/Omiya station, buy our tickets to Misawa (only a 3-hour trip this time), and immerse ourselves in northern Tokyo, pretending that we don’t look very, very pale, chubby, and tall compared to everyone else here.

Thanks, all, for the encouragements about my own personal growth and my marriage. It’s a challenge — the marriage, that is — and honestly, it’s better at 6-1/2 months than I probably could have even expected. Maybe we’re just stacking the getting-to-know-one-another with the horrific-first-year?

I’m heading out of town for a bit to grab a bite of sushi. In Japan.

Well, really, Mike has business that takes him first to the small town of Misawa, then later to Tokyo. It’s 10:11pm, and in order to get to the airport in time to check my baggage for a 6:05am flight, I have to leave here no later than 3:30am. Ah, joy. I plan to keep myself up for a good while now, and then tank out on the long flight from Houston to Tokyo.

Oddly, this trip might (but I’m not promising) give me more of an opportunity to write. Mike’s working, but my agenda is semi-empty, at least the first week, since I haven’t found much to do in Misawa yet. I’ve been reading Parenting Beyond Belief as I’ve had time and hit the mood for deeper thoughts, and really do plan to scribble some of said thoughts down some day. Otherwise, I have a couple Jodi Picoult novels (thanks, Joy, for the loan!), some mystery/thriller brain candy, and the recent release of Carl Sagan essays.

Have a great couple of days, everyone, and I’ll be in touch!

It’s kind of cool to sit here with the windows open, and occasionally hear cheers from a baseball field about 1/2 mile away. If Maya weren’t sleeping, I think I’d go watch, just for fun.

From the comments on Hemant’s blog:

Reflecting over these events as an adult, I have come to the conclusion that deeply religious people are similar to individuals with personality disorders in that they simply cannot attach. They have learned to mimic the motions of normal human behavior but the hamster has left the wheel.

A little timeline:

• One week ago today, I got a positive result on an early (super early, like 10 days post-ovulation) pregnancy test.
• The weekend was a bit nasty in terms of the husband and I working out unexpected emotions re: said test — even though we were TRYING.
• By Monday, I warned the husband that with my temperature shift, I was fairly sure I was going to miscarry.
• Tuesday, I miscarried.

If I hadn’t been paying attention to symptoms, I’d have never even known I’d been pregnant in the first place. Annnnyway…

I had a meeting planned with my local counselor for Monday, and the timing couldn’t have been better — after a quick (eh, okay, long) rant from me about the weekend, I told her that I didn’t want to fuss about my husband, because hell…I can’t control him. I can, on the other hand, control me. What she pointed out that she sees in me is a bit of difficulty attaching. She also mentioned that she can see some of the same in my husband, but demonstrated in different ways (qualified that, of course, she only “knows” him through my stories).

So, me being me, I read. And read. And yeah, I saw some of myself — but not as much as I would have seen, say, 10 years ago.

Back to the quote from Hemant’s place, this comment really jumped off the page at me — as you might imagine, given my background and past week. I’m not looking for one more emotional issue to blame on religion (I have enough of those!), but it does shed a little light on myself as a younger person. I honestly think it took me until my early 30s (and my first work with a counselor — see the earliest posts of this blog) for me to learn to become a genuine, authentic person. Until then, I just kept role-playing, trying desperately to read what I was “supposed to be” and to try to “be that” (often unsuccessfully).

No conclusions from this. Just thinking out loud…

Back to my hole now. At some point, I should give an update on my life, huh? Or perhaps, answer the questions Sage asked me eons ago?